Nothing to make it bearable
by naboru narluin
Summary: Blast Off has his own way to cope with the experience of isolation of the Detention Centre... Pre war, Blast Off


**Title:** 'Nothing' to make it bearable  
**Warnings:** dark themes  
**Continuity:** G1 [part of **ultharkitty**'s Dysfunction AU, pre-war]  
**Characters:** Blast Off  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Summary:** Blast Off has his own way to cope with the experience of isolation of the Detention Centre...  
**Disclaimer:** Sadly, I own nothing.  
**Beta:** ultharkitty :)

**Note: **Originally written for the Bad Dreams prompt at LJ's **tf_ic_prompts**, but also part of **ultharkitty**'s Dysfunction AU. :)I know the physics aren't quite right here and there is no "end" of the universe since (we believe) it's more like a Möbius Strip, but well… Our species exists about 5000 years, and maybe Cybertronians know more about space than we do. ;p

**'Nothing' to make it bearable**

- Memory log: Blast Off…

- Processor re-boot sequence completed.

Blast Off woke up, thinking incoherent thoughts at the first moments of consciousness, before his processor clocked fast enough to make sense again. Only to find out that there was nothing to make sense of.

It was dark and he felt nothing.

- Sensor net status: 43% repaired.  
- Time to enable sensor net input: Unknown.  
- Internal chronometer: Offline.  
- Activate timer: 0 joors, 0 breems, 0.68 kliks awake.  
- Time to full functionality: Unknown.

He checked a few other systems. Most of them were down, like his audio receptors and the sensors responsible for visual input in alt-mode. No wonder it was dark. His cooling fans didn't work, but they never did when he was in space.

His onboard equipment was the only thing which was functional, but his onboard cameras couldn't take an image of his surroundings.

The protective shields for his widows were activated. A dark, thick layer of metal that protected the glass and interior structures from radiation and sometimes intense heat during re-entry.

The density of the atmosphere of every planet was different and the heat of the plasma vitiated, becoming more intense the denser the atmosphere was.

Blast Off didn't remember that he had activated them; Blast Off didn't even remember that he had landed. The last thing he knew was a space flight, without complication or turbulence.

It was dangerous, because he had no indication of what to expect, but he gave the command to retract the protective metal on his glass. It didn't matter what, but he needed a clue to find out where he was.

With his sensor net down, there was no feeling when the layer was drawn back into its holding and the view slowly opened.

His onboard cameras pointed at the wide open void and tried to focus. But there was nothing to focus on.

There was _nothing_.

Only blackness, darkness, no light, no star… nothing, and Blast Off's tanks lurched, and that was something that he felt, but not over his sensor net, in his processor.

This was _wrong_.

Everywhere was something. Nowhere was there only nothing.

At the end of the universe, perhaps, but even that was just a theory.

He couldn't have flown that far… could he?

He checked his chronometer again.

- Internal chronometer: Offline.  
- Timer: 0 joors, 0 breems, 4.43 kliks.

Blast Off couldn't have reached the end of the universe - if it existed - unconsciously. There would have been gravitational fields which would have got hold of him; he would have collided with something, a planet, an asteroid, _anything_.

The possibility of reaching the end of everything was nearly zero. His energy resources wouldn't have been enough, would they?

Though, he knew very well that in space someone didn't need much - almost no - energy to maintain velocity. There was no resistance inbetween the punctual masses, and only gravity could slow you down - or accelerate you. The vacuum outside was the reason for this, and the reason why you never felt like you were flying.

Was he flying right now? Did he still speed deeper and deeper into the utter nothingness?

Blast Off felt sick as he stared in the complete darkness, and he began to panic.

This couldn't be true. There needed to be something. He could turn, he had to turn.

Trying to activate his thrusters and reaction control system, his program informed him that these systems were also offline.

He couldn't move, he couldn't see, he couldn't _feel_, and there was nothing he could do about it.

* * *

- Internal chronometer: Offline.  
- Timer: 59 joors, 8 breems, 3.08 kliks.

- Energy level: 73%

- Sensor net status: 51% repaired.  
- Time to enable sensor net input: Unknown.

Blast Off had diverted all needed energy to the main problems, and had cancelled the repairs of unimportant parts. Which meant his thrusters and sensor net had priority.

When his sensor net reached 75% repaired, he could activate it again without endangering himself and becoming unconscious because of the pain. And he would do it, even if the ache would be horrible. He only knew the feeling of a damaged net from about 87% and that was almost unbearable, but he needed to feel _something_.

And if it was only the tensile stress of the vacuum, it would be better than the uncertainty. He had deactivated the onboard cameras; he hadn't been able to endure the view any longer.

The view of nothing, the imagination of nothing; it made him feel weird, odd - uneasy would be an understatement. The entire nothingness beyond everything that existed - it was like a forbidden thought.

He didn't know what he would do if he really was completely alone. He probably couldn't go back. His energy level would be too low and he just could not. He needed a fix point to orientate himself, and there weren't any…

* * *

- Internal chronometer: Offline.  
-Timer: 221 joors, 14 breems, 6.72 kliks.

- Energy level: 57%

- Sensor net status: 73% repaired.  
- Time to enable sensor net input: approx. 13 joors, 3 breems, 2.94 kliks.

Maybe, Blast Off thought, the uncertainty would be bliss.

He waited…

* * *

Approximately 13 joors and 4 breems later, Blast Off's systems enabled his sensory net, and his processor was flooded by information which was only pain. He had expected that, but it was still terrible.

He hadn't recharged in the time he'd waited and his mental and bodily exhaustion made it harder to concentrate, and to block out the pain.

He needed another few breems for that, before he felt something else - compressive stress on his outer frame.

And this was - again - wrong.

Confused and tired, he tried to imagine "nothing" once more, and failed.

It made no sense to him, and he waited for his scanners to come online.

* * *

His self-repair needed another 46 joors to get them functional, and the moment he activated them, finally, everything made sense.

_Hydrogen oxide._

Blast Off lay on the ground on an unknown planet in an ocean of hydrogen oxide…

Still uncertain how he landed there, and why, it made everything better.

The mental stress vansihed, and he relaxed, even though the stress outside amplified the pain.

He welcomed it. The feeling of _something_ around him, the knowledge that he wasn't lost, that he was still _somewhere_.

He felt stupid, and relieved, and he stopped the constant overwrite of the recharge sequence.

* * *

Joors later, he woke up and his thrusters worked.

He spent only a few kliks checking other systems, before he activated them.

He couldn't recall if he was ever in such a hurry to leave a planet - and bad memories - behind. He hadn't even bothered to scan the entire planet of possible life forms or energy resources

When he flew through space again, the last few cycles seemed so unreal.

* * *

Later, on Cybertron, when all his systems were working, he remembered.

A space weather anomaly; he'd been forced to make an emergency landing on an unknown planet.

The atmosphere was too dense for his build type, but his scanners, damaged due to intense radiation, hadn't warned him and so he found out too late.

The plasma around him became too hot. The ceramic was nearly useless, and the heat which built up was conducted though his entire frame. It burned his sensors, almost melted them, and he was close to the point of loosing consciousness. Only because of his self-preservation system taking over, he landed safely.

He still wasn't sure how long he had lain in the depths of the planet before he had become conscious, but the time he was aware of seemed to be an eternity.

He'd never told anyone that he'd been seriously worried about having reached the end of the known universe, floating through nothing without the chance of going back.

In hindsight it was stupid - so utterly stupid.

Though, millions of years and some important events later, when he was imprisoned in the Detention Centre, reduced to his personality component, without any kind of input, this memory made everything _bearable_.

He couldn't move, he couldn't see, he couldn't _feel_, and there was nothing he could do about it.

But he _knew_ there was something around him. He knew, he was still _somewhere_, and he clung to this knowledge.

It made it bearable.


End file.
